Trying to get better

...at posting in something resembling a timely fashion. Next week is my reading week (no tutorials!), so expect all sorts of garbage from yours truly. When I'm not knee-deep in my favourite volume of Post-Colonial criticism, of course.

Right now, I just want to do a quick post about a charity that my former high school is running.

SDA Operation: Prom Dress is not a new idea, but it is a very nice one all the same. We're collecting donations of any and all prom gear for the girls of Hudson County who can't afford the luxury of prom night on their own. While whether or not girls go to their proms is not a story that will make headlines, prom night is an experience that most wouldn't want to be denied. Getting cooperation has been slightly more difficult than originally anticipated, but here's what I've collected so far.

I'm not going to demand, dear readers, that you ship ballgowns to a high school in New Jersey. This just brightens my day because I enjoy when people are nice to one another for the purpose of being nice, and I want to hear about things that have made you happy recently.

Or, tell me about your prom. Was it amazing? Awful? What did you wear? Do you have any baking recipes for those of us who can't effectively use measuring cups?

Chacha now, y'all!

Obligatory Valentine's Day Entry

Don't let the title fool you, ladies and gentlemen--unlike most people, I quite love Valentine's Day.

I spend most days of the year trying to convince people that they don't need to earn love or nice things, that goodness should just come to them because they are people and we are not put on this earth to suffer.

More often than not, though, my particular worldview is not shared or accepted.

Today is a genuinely consumeristblahblahblah day which nobody seems to enjoy, regardless of their relationship status.

It does, however, give me an opportunity to send that extra blast of love-spores (Sperm imagery, I know. Just bear with me.) into the world without fear of being thought a creep.

So what if I have to endure a few eye rolls and cynical sighs?

Whether they like to admit it or not, everyone likes being reminded that they are loved, and I am okay with being the one who gently tugs on their shirttails to do so.

And, now, a poetic interlude from Mr. Kenneth Rexroth with one of my favourite poems. In fact, it is the one from which this silly little blog gets it's name. Photos by lberto Polo Iañez.

~

When We with Sappho

“. . . about the cool water
the wind sounds through sprays
of apple, and from the quivering leaves
slumber pours down . . .”

We lie here in the bee filled, ruinous
Orchard of a decayed New England farm,
Summer in our hair, and the smell
Of summer in our twined bodies,
Summer in our mouths, and summer
In the luminous, fragmentary words
Of this dead Greek woman.
Stop reading. Lean back. Give me your mouth.
Your grace is as beautiful as sleep.
You move against me like a wave
That moves in sleep.
Your body spreads across my brain
Like a bird filled summer;
Not like a body, not like a separate thing,
But like a nimbus that hovers
Over every other thing in all the world.
Lean back. You are beautiful,
As beautiful as the folding
Of your hands in sleep.
We have grown old in the afternoon.
Here in our orchard we are as old
As she is now, wherever dissipate
In that distant sea her gleaming dust
Flashes in the wave crest
Or stains the murex shell.
All about us the old farm subsides
Into the honey bearing chaos of high summer.
In those far islands the temples
Have fallen away, and the marble
Is the color of wild honey.
There is nothing left of the gardens
That were once about them, of the fat
Turf marked with cloven hooves.
Only the sea grass struggles
Over the crumbled stone,
Over the splintered steps,
Only the blue and yellow
Of the sea, and the cliffs
Red in the distance across the bay.
Lean back.
Her memory has passed to our lips now.
Our kisses fall through summer’s chaos
In our own breasts and thighs.
Gold colossal domes of cumulus cloud
Lift over the undulant, sibilant forest.
The air presses against the earth.
Thunder breaks over the mountains.
Far off, over the Adirondacks,
Lightning quivers, almost invisible
In the bright sky, violet against
The grey, deep shadows of the bellied clouds.
The sweet virile hair of thunder storms
Brushes over the swelling horizon.
Take off your shoes and stockings.
I will kiss your sweet legs and feet
As they lie half buried in the tangle
Of rank scented midsummer flowers.
Take off your clothes. I will press
Your summer honeyed flesh into the hot
Soil, into the crushed, acrid herbage
Of midsummer. Let your body sink
Like honey through the hot
Granular fingers of summer.
Rest. Wait. We have enough for a while.
Kiss me with your mouth
Wet and ragged, your mouth that tastes
Of my own flesh. Read to me again
The twisting music of that language
That is of all others, itself a work of art.
Read again those isolate, poignant words
Saved by ancient grammarians
To illustrate the conjugations
And declensions of the more ancient dead.
Lean back in the curve of my body,
Press your bruised shoulders against
The damp hair of my body.
Kiss me again. Think, sweet linguist,
In this world the ablative is impossible.
No other one will help us here.
We must help ourselves to each other.
The wind walks slowly away from the storm;
Veers on the wooded crests; sounds
In the valleys. Here we are isolate,
One with the other; and beyond
This orchard lies isolation,
The isolation of all the world.
Never let anything intrude
On the isolation of this day,
These words, isolate on dead tongues,
This orchard, hidden from fact and history,
These shadows, blended in the summer light,
Together isolate beyond the world’s reciprocity.
Do not talk any more. Do not speak.
Do not break silence until
We are weary of each other.
Let our fingers run like steel
Carving the contours of our bodies’ gold.
Do not speak. My face sinks
In the clotted summer of your hair.
The sound of the bees stops.
Stillness falls like a cloud.
Be still. Let your body fall away
Into the awe filled silence
Of the fulfilled summer —
Back, back, infinitely away —
Our lips weak, faint with stillness.
See. The sun has fallen away.
Now there are amber
Long lights on the shattered
Boles of the ancient apple trees.
Our bodies move to each other
As bodies move in sleep;
At once filled and exhausted,
As the summer moves to autumn,
As we, with Sappho, move towards death.
My eyelids sink toward sleep in the hot
Autumn of your uncoiled hair.
Your body moves in my arms
On the verge of sleep;
And it is as though I held
In my arms the bird filled
Evening sky of summer.

'You have work. We get it.'

I assume that's what you lovelies are thinking every time I mention this essay or that exam.

Fear not--they're all over!

Well, until March, but who cares about that silly old month?

The answer: Not Liz.

Last week I handed in my last essay for that term. Even with two extensions and several all-nighters, it was not my best work by several thousand miles. It will not wow my deliciously dorky tutor to the point where he would like to discuss it over several glasses of wine, but it might upset him so much that we have to explore over several cups of tea what made it such a disaster. Either one of those is fine with me.

When it was all done and handed in, I took the long way home. Meaning, I stopped in every charity shop and bakery on my way home. At one of said bakeries, my delirious state of mind had me convinced that a mountain of croissants was exactly what I needed in my life to rid it of the stain of Chaucer's use of narrative devices. Don't worry. I thought better of it and got the most delicious lemon tart of my life instead. No pictures because it quickly found it's way into my tummy.

That's not to say that I didn't make any other ridiculous impulse buys.

We've not stopped playing since I brought this home.

For a Euro, you wouldn't have said 'No' either, so don't even play.

Weird, beady hat? Maybe not the best choice I made.

A far better grab was this beauty. Just under a fiver may be a bit steep for a charity shop, but I have a remarkably large head and I never find non-knitted hats to fit it. I think it's pretty schweet.

I got home and napped for a bit. At least, I think I did. I lost a few hours and then one of my housemates was baking cookies. I am a useless baker, so my job was to turn these

into this,

which became these.

Deliciousness.

She also bought some mad fruit.

Completely unrelated, but I am in love with these pens.

They're pretty much fine-tip markers, but they're cheap they don't bleed and I love them.

It's a dork thing.

Love!